While it’s not exactly a “man on Mars,” there’s an SUV-size vehicle on the Red Planet.

To put it another way, we just landed a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover weighing 2,000 pounds via a skycrane and a hovercraft onto the surface of another planet.

Talk about “to boldly go.”

If anyone needs confirmation that math, algebra, science, engineering and the ability to work in an international team are worthwhile skills to learn in school, you have it.

It’s a big leap for science, for mankind and for U.S. space exploration.
First images from the Mars Curiosity rover are out and the most impressive is the seven-minute landing video, nicknamed the “7 minutes of terror.”

It puts roller coasters such as Hersheypark’s Skyrush to shame, especially the final seconds as the massive vehicle hovers and then drops down by cords onto the planet.

Today, the rover will formally lift its main camera, the key “eyes” that will help steer the vehicle around Mars. Scientists hope the vehicle will be roving in about two weeks.

“It’s too soon to tell what we’ll find,” says Dr. Bethany Ehlmann, a Caltech professor and Jet Propulsion Laboratory planetary scientist. “We’re looking for what kinds of habitats were on Mars, whether there was life and what makes this planet work. We still don’t really understand what happened to Mars.”

Scientists are especially looking for evidence of carbon, one of the key building blocks of life. It might not be an “alien” kind of discovery, but it will certainly give us more clues about the history of Mars and why some planets, such as ours, sustain life and others do not.

The enormity of this mission should not be underestimated. It took years of planning, especially the engineering to land such a heavy vehicle on the Red Planet, which doesn’t have the dense atmosphere of Earth to slow down something hurtling through space.

It was a far-off goal that slowly became a reality with a diverse and global team of scientists. It’s a lesson our Congress could use on how to get the impossible done — even when people strongly disagree.

For now, we should all celebrate.

“Enjoy it. We’re on another planet. Let’s have fun exploring,” a lead scientists reminded staff at JPL in Pasadena, Calif., as the rover touched down.

This mission isn’t just for Ph.D. scientists. It is something anyone who ever stargazed or watched or read scifi should take a moment to marvel at — whether by watching clips on YouTube, checking images on NASA’s home page or sharing some of the Mars photos on Facebook.

We must especially show our kids. This could easily be their “Sputnik” or “man on the moon” moment that inspires the next generation to put a man (or woman) on another planet.